


A Simple Thing

by hystericalwomannovelist



Category: Dark Shadows (1966)
Genre: F/M, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-17
Updated: 2011-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-13 08:25:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hystericalwomannovelist/pseuds/hystericalwomannovelist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had made some sort of a joke; she had had a ready retort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Simple Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Notes written at the time:
>
>> Well, I have notes all over the place for about a dozen unwritten J/B stories, but I suppose priority one for me right now is to finish Dark Shadows as quickly as possible (I'm somewhere deep in 1970PT) and then, perhaps, I will finish one or two of them.
>> 
>> But in the meantime, I was bored at work today and inspired to write this little thing out quickly, and I submit it for your light enjoyment. It is just me dealing with all those times Barnabas swoops in and stands so close to Julia, and I find it's a little more useful than yelling at my television for them to make out already. Because I'm always thinking of ways to get those crazy kids together, but more and more I like to think it won't be anything so extraordinary at all; maybe one day, he'll find himself standing there with her as he always does, and suddenly he'll just get it.
>> 
>> I will probably want to use this basic device in a story again, but I'm sure I won't want to use 1500 words to cover five seconds again, so it seems safe to post this now. :)
>> 
>> Alas, I can never seem to be as cruel to Barnabas in fic as I'd like to be. He deserves to have a harder time of it than he's about to.

He had made some sort of a joke; she had had a ready retort. They were sparring, as they often did, standing at ease by the fire. He forgot the subject already; this could have been any of a thousand nights they had spent together. It was always the same, whether arguing or lightheartedly needling one another: always they were drawn together, standing close, her hands reaching out for him instinctively, each comforted by the other's presence.

He met her gaze evenly. She was smiling up at him, with not only mirth but something like adoration in her eyes. He had seen and yet he had not seen this before. He had been aware, but he had stopped himself short of recognizing it.

This time, something seemed to click into place; once seen, it could not be unseen. He saw that she loved him calmly, absolutely. She loved him without expectation, or thought of fulfillment. Her love was enough for her. He had never felt that way; love had always been a madness to him, a need to possess and consume.

He began to feel something else he had never felt before, now, locked into her eyes; it would have terrified him to realize it alone, but he was calmed because she was calm. She steadied him. He felt warm, relaxed. He had never in his life felt so fine--so right.

He was a man out of place, out of time, an impostor no matter how long he stayed here. No one else would ever know who he was and who he had been, what he had done, how he had felt, no one but her; no one else could ever know all this and still love him. No one but her. He could not forget his past, or live as if he were not that man. He needed the understanding he could only find in her. He needed the reflection of himself he could only see in her eyes.

Was that why he had seen but not seen this, felt but not felt this way, for so long? He trusted her completely. He relied upon her utterly. He did not fear her rejection. He was at peace when he was with her. He had not quite understood these quiet and deep forces amid all the panic and excitement and fleeting desire. He had not really known what it all meant.

All of this descended upon him in the space of perhaps a second, a weight lifted even as something heavier, stronger anchored him down; he was filled to the limit in places he hadn't even guessed were empty. He understood what took years to learn, finally, all at once. He laughed again, now not at his joke, but at his sheer stupidity.

Her laugh deepened too in response, not knowing why, delighted simply because he was delighted. It made him freer and more rooted still, to really see the effect he had on her. He shook his head, amazed at himself. How many times had it been just like this, and yet--?

He was physically aware now of how close they stood. How many times had they stood just like this before? They were absurdly close, their bodies almost touching, their faces mere inches away. Anyone who saw them would have assumed in a heartbeat what he had only now realized; incredible he had only now realized. Incredible she still did not realize--but that was his fault: what once may have confused her had become simply the way it was, because it was the way he made it. Perhaps she enjoyed their closeness, but she expected nothing from it, was by now well convinced it meant nothing.

Absurd to stand so close, so comfortably, intimately, tenderly, in a perfect unspoken understanding, and imagine it could mean nothing. How could she have given up hope, if she had, and been strong enough to love him calmly and without expectation, if in fact she still did, when he would gravitate toward her this way, want and need her so near? Wasn't she as blind as he was? Had much of their angst and trauma, their loneliness, their need, been borne not by supernatural forces but of their own making and design? All this time, he thought, all this time...

Oh, he knew: they had stood together this way before, they had seen each other for what they truly were before, they had felt this way before, and anything that had kept them from really understanding had been their fault just as much as it had been wrong. He saw he could fix this now. He could put this right, now, so easily. Funny, too, that something so far-reaching and long-eluded could be settled in a single moment, one realization, one reaction.

But at present he felt frozen in time. He reveled in the moment before it would happen as much as he anticipated the moments that would follow. He reveled in knowing something she didn't, for once. He was sure she would catch up instantly and was stubbornly loath to give her the satisfaction. He loved her expectantly, and was sure of her love; that is where they differed. These were the last frozen moments he suspected there would be a disparity in any knowledge or feeling between them.

They stood close, but he moved slowly closer. She did not flinch. Her smile did not alter. He lowered his head, just barely, toward her, and she merely stood her ground. They had been even this close before, then, if she did not wonder at it. He drifted closer. How close would he come before this began to seem unusual to her, before he saw the flash of sudden recognition in her that he had just felt himself, and what would she do then?

He came so close to her that he thought, she has won, anyhow, after all: she can stand it; I cannot. He wanted so badly to see that shock in her eyes and to be able to relieve it, he wanted to see it before he gave in himself, but despite this new certainty, this grounded sort of freedom, he still knew himself to be a basically weak creature; he was not like her. She could stand it forever--and what was even more incredible, she would. Somehow, for him, she would choose to stand it forever.

Her hands, which had been playing idly with his lapels, were now resting thoughtlessly flat on his chest. It wasn't even sporting, what she had gotten away with all this time, snuck in under his nose. But turnabout was fair play; he could do it just as well.

Not looking away for a moment, he took her elbows lightly in the palm of each hand. She blinked, but she did not falter. He turned his hands over and glided them softly to her sides, gradually increasing the pressure, until he could feel her stomach muscles tense involuntarily against his thumbs, feel the intake of breath as his long fingers curled around her back. Her eyelids drooped lazily, enjoying this, not fighting. This she hadn't built up a resistance to. He had her now.

He'd always had her, and always would have her, if she could still respond to him after all he had done. He did not deserve her, that dark note edged into his thoughts; he did not deserve her, but that did not mean he could not, and if he could, it was entirely because of her. He saw, really saw, that everything good in him had something to do with her, and anything good that could come his way he wanted to share with her.

He pulled her closer still, and as her eyes flew open he saw the confusion and surprise finally register on her face. This he savored, but he didn't want to hear the question that came next. He wouldn't know how to answer it. His thoughts were swirling even as he felt so still, and he wasn't quite ready or able to articulate any of it.

Not knowing any other way to avoid her words, or not wanting any other way, he closed the rest of the distance between them in one movement and wrapped his arms fully around her, kissing her soundly on the lips. She could not have broken away if she tried; she tried for only a moment until, as he knew she would, her own thoughts and feelings caught up with him and her body caught on an instant later, freeing her hands just to embrace him, entwining her lips with his.

She pulled away finally; he could not stop her questioning mind forever. He kissed her forehead lightly, seeing her furrowed brow--who was the confused one now, and who the calm? He stepped back to give her some space, and felt her lean against him for support--who steadied whom now? He smiled and met her gaze evenly again. Everything had changed and yet so little had changed. All that remained was to say it. He had the words for it; he knew as if it were the most basic part of himself.

"Barnabas," she half-whispered, not entirely recovered, "What--what brought that on?"

"I love you, Julia. I'm a terrible fool, but a fool who loves you. Is that all right?"

"I never thought-- or I thought it would take something extraordinary-- in the end such a simple thing..." She struggled to collect her thoughts, but she was beginning to relax in his arms.

"A simple thing indeed. I just had to open my eyes. And see what had always been there--very close."

"You are a fool. But a fool I love very much, too."

As he took her in his arms again, he was so sure, now, as he had never been of anything in his life. About one thing, at least, one immense good thing, he would never wonder again. And in that security, that certainty of her, he could face the rest. As he always had, in fact, done. Now that he had seen it, he would never look away.


End file.
